THE GANN WHEEL
THE GANN WHEEL
THE GANN WHEEL
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<strong>THE</strong> <strong>GANN</strong> <strong>WHEEL</strong><br />
When presented with the idea of the Square of Nine, this illustration is most likely what you think<br />
of. A useable version is available in Appendix 1.<br />
As with most things associated with Gann, they are described in colorful terms and made to look<br />
more difficult than they really are. The Gann Wheel or Square of Nine chart has been compared<br />
to or described as the floor plan of the Great Pyramid. Gann is said to have kept a scale model of<br />
the Great Pyramid with the peak labeled with the numeral one, and each block consecutively<br />
numbered in a counterclockwise fashion. You can easily imagine how this pyramid would be<br />
constructed, by grabbing the number one on the Gann Wheel and pulling it straight up to create a<br />
three dimensional object from the two-dimensional flat surface of the paper. This is probably a<br />
fairly useful thought experiment because it creates a clear picture in the mind of opposing sides,<br />
distinct angles, and the increasing distance between numbers, what we relate to as volatility, as<br />
you move further away from the numeral one on the top of the pyramid.<br />
That the Great Pyramid of Gizeh also features prominently in the work of R.N. Elliott and the<br />
adherence of Fibonacci ratios to something built thousands of years ago is probably more than<br />
coincidental. For example, the Great Pyramid is 5,813 inches high (5-8-13) and the inch was the<br />
standard unit of measure in ancient Egypt. The ratio of the elevation to the base is .618. The total<br />
of the four edges of the base, measured in inches, is 36,524.22 which is exactly 100 times the<br />
length of the solar year. What does it all mean, who knows? In a totally unscientific affirmation it<br />
does suggest that the human brain may be hard-wired to respond in a certain way to very specific<br />
mathematical ratios and spatial relationships.<br />
The Real Square of Nine?<br />
Gann gave many courses on different aspects of his method but he never gave a course<br />
exclusively on the Square of Nine. We understand from others who have studied much of Gann's<br />
original work that in one of his courses he did write about what he called a square of nine that<br />
looked something like this:
9 18 27 ….. 81<br />
And although he never referred to it by any particular name Gann also produced his own<br />
illustration of the Gann Wheel, what we call today the Square of Nine, that is the same as the<br />
illustration in the Appendix. We know that Gann used what we call the Gann Wheel to trade along<br />
with the complete version of the above table of 81 numbers as well as several other tables of<br />
numbers and geometric charts. Today we take for granted things like hand-held computers and<br />
wireless communications. In Gann's day you had to be a lot more creative and resourceful.<br />
Use the Gann Wheel then Put It Away<br />
Although we will cover in this section a classic and simple use of the Gann Wheel to forecast<br />
price support and resistance levels, at the end of this section we will put the paper copy of the<br />
Gann Wheel away. The purpose of this short exercise is to provide a conceptual framework to the<br />
mathematical applications of the Square of Nine that is the heart of this work and much of Gann's<br />
work as well. Later on it will be much easier to make sense of an expression like "19 is on the 90<br />
degree angle" after you've seen how that works in two dimensions on the Gann Wheel.<br />
31 32 33 34 35 36 37<br />
30 13 14 15 16 17 38<br />
29 12 3 4 5 18 39<br />
28 11 2 1 6 19 40<br />
27 10 9 8 7 20 41<br />
26 25 24 23 22 21 42<br />
49 48 47 46 45 44 43<br />
If you draw or imagine a circle around the outer edge of the above table we can conceptualize the<br />
table as a rectangle inside a circle with a 360 degree circumference. The vertical line from 34 to<br />
46 is at 0-180 degrees, and the left to right horizontal line from 28 to 40 on the table is at 270-90<br />
degrees. In the example above we can say that 19 is 90 degrees up from 15. The numeral 23 is<br />
180 degrees up from 15 and 90 degrees up from 19. The numeral 8 would be 180 degrees down<br />
from 15. The "up" and "down" references mean greater or lesser numbers and not relative<br />
positions on the table. For example, 8 is 180 degrees down from 15 and 23 is 180 degrees up<br />
from 15 even though 8 and 23 are both on opposite sides of the horizontal 270-90 degree line.<br />
In this very simple example we are using the Gann Wheel as a square root calculator. That may<br />
not be obvious to you at this point but when we start to do the math it will be. The number 15 lies<br />
conveniently on the 0-180 degree angle so it's easy enough to show a 90 degree or 180 degree<br />
rotation. What if the number is not one of those on the most convenient fixed angles, say 37 on<br />
our small chart, which lies in the upper right hand corner? Most commercial Gann Wheels come<br />
with an acetate overlay with several angles printed on it. To calculate targets from 37 you would<br />
move the overlay to the right so that the zero or 360 degree angle lay on 37 and then read the<br />
angles of interest directly from the repositioned overlay.<br />
We neither encourage nor discourage using a two-dimensional (paper) version of this square root<br />
calculator. After all people have been successfully using this tool for long before there was a Wall
Street in New York or even a New World to put a New York in. Just be prepared for a steep<br />
learning curve. The paper version increments in whole numbers and can be difficult to apply to<br />
stock prices less than $150 and to many futures prices which may require a radical conversion of<br />
one kind or another. Of course, the folks that know these conversion factors aren't going to tell<br />
you about them without serious cash changing hands, if at all. That being said, any number of<br />
books, courses and seminars on applying the paper version of the Gann Wheel or the Square of<br />
Nine are available on-line or in person, and some have been available for many years. We<br />
haven't traveled this road because we believe that there is an easier way.